Pope: Unity, Dialogue Key To Peace

March 08, 1991|By Peggy Polk, Special to the Tribune.

ROME — Winding up the first international meeting on the consequences of the Persian Gulf war, Pope John Paul II said he is seeking a dialogue between Christians, Muslims and Jews and an immediate effort to resolve the issue of a Palestinian homeland.

To preserve the peace in the Middle East, said the pope, ``It will be necessary to overcome the ill-feelings and cultural divisions and,

particularly, those that have grown up between different religious worlds.``

The leader of the world`s Roman Catholics spoke in the Paul VI Audience Hall, flanked by seven patriarchs from the Middle East and seven bishops from the U.S., Europe and North Africa representing the countries most directly involved in the war. The session closed Wednesday.

The pope called the prelates to the Vatican to exchange information about how the war had affected their countries; to evaluate its consequences on the Middle East, on the region`s Christian minorities and on inter-religious dialogue; and to propose ways the church can promote peace.

Underlying the deliberations, observers said, was the fear of polarization between the Arab and Western worlds that would bring renewed persecution to the Christian minorities in the Middle East.

Opening the meeting, the pope said the faith in God common to Christians, Muslims and Jews precluded a holy war.

In a gesture of good will, General Secretary Hamid Algabid of the Organization of the Islamic Conference sent a messsage from Jiddah saying that member countries were ready to join in ``all efforts necessary to consolidate Islamic-Christian dialogue and to advance the cause of peace in the world.``

But Patriarch Raphael I. Bidawid of Babylon, the Baghdad-based spiritual leader of 570,000 Chaldean Rite Catholics, was not so sure. He said that because Arab Christians are tied by culture, civilization and politics to the West, they could be ``subjected to new oppression, if not by governments certainly by Islamic public opinion.``

Bidawid, who has defended Iraqi President Saddam Hussein`s intentions and accused the allies of genocide, predicted that if Hussein is overthrown Iraq would be plunged into ``civil war that could be much worse than that of the Lebanese.`` Its effect, he said, would be ``the destabilization of the country and the region.``

The pope in his closing discourse and the prelates in their final statement focused on the question of a Palestinian homeland, with the pope indicating support for a Middle East conference on the issue.

``The injustice of which the Palestinian people are victims demands a commitment from all and, in particular, from those people placed in charge of nations and international communities,`` he said.

He made a special plea for Jerusalem.

``Called to be a crossroads of peace, it cannot continue to be a cause of discord and argument,`` the pope said.